Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #656, 7/28/13

To: Brith Sholom Media Watch Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@comcast.net)
Subj: Brith Sholom Media Watch Alert #656, 7/28/13

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Peace talks are on again, maybe. The AP this week portrayed as Kerrry’s ‘most significant achievement yet” his having “cajoled” both Bibi and Abbas to the table. Whether Kerry has actually achieved talks’ restart or not may become clearer next week, but he didn’t “cajole” the Israeli side to the table. Bibi has been pleading for immediate no-pre-conditions talks all along. And if next week’s possible restart blows up, the Big Money is on “settlements,” not Arab rejection of two states for two peoples, getting the blame. It’s happened before now. Come see.

This Week In The Inq: Kerry “Cajoling” Both Sides To Table
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This Week

The Inq’s Swing of the Week at Israel came Sunday (Inq, 7/21/13, A3, AP, “A Tough Bid for Secrecy on Mideast”), in which its AP article credited Kerry with “his most significant achievement yet,” his claimed success, as the AP put it, in trying

to cajole Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas into returning to the table.

Whether Kerry has really succeeded in restarting negotiations remains to be seen, but what has been crystal clear for years now is that, contrary to how the Inq’s AP article put it this week, the two sides did not need equal “cajoling.” All along, it’s been “hard-line” Netanyahu calling for talks’ resumption at once with no pre-conditions, and “moderate” Abbas demanding unilateral Israeli concessions – the 1949 ceasefire lines as the basis for borders, as though the 1967 war and UN resolution 242 and Bush’s commitment to Sharon never happened; stop building homes for Jews in Judea, Samaria and the core of Jerusalem, while Arab building goes on unabated; release scores of prisoners with Jewish blood on their hands – as his price just to return to the table.

In welcoming Japan’s foreign minister to Jerusalem on Wednesday, Netanyahu (Prime Minister’s Office release 7/24/13) said this:

… I hope that soon we will be able to see the beginning of peace talks.  Our team is ready – we’ve always been ready.

And see op-ed by Israel’s Mid-Atlantic Region Consul General on Wednesday This Week In The Inq on which side needed cajoling:

This past week, Secretary of State John Kerry visited the Middle East for the sixth time since March, in an effort to revive the negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unequivocally backed Kerry’s plan to begin direct negotiations immediately, without preconditions. The Palestinian leadership balked, demanding concessions up front, effectively preempting a negotiated settlement. Finally, in his fifth meeting with Palestinian officials in four days, Kerry managed to convince them to return to negotiations.

The Inq reinforced the AP-purveyed impression of both sides needing “cajoling” with its sub-headline referencing “Kerry’s success at getting sides to agree to talk.”

But perhaps we should be grateful for getting both-sides-needed-cajoling. The Inq’s headline to its May 30th (Inq, 5/30/13, A3, AP) Kerry-peace-processing AP article had grave, intense-pressure-for-talks-appreciating Abbas statesmanly anticipating a new peace talks proposal from Kerry, with, alas, Israeli recalcitrance on “a West Bank settlement freeze” hanging in the balance:

Abbas: Intense Pressure for Talks; The Palestinian’s aides say he expects a new proposal from John Kerry. A West Bank settlement freeze is at issue

But that very AP article’s text directly quoted Netanyahu: “I stand ready to resume negotiations immediately,” and characterized his position as “He says talks should resume without any conditions.” [Peace talks had been conducted over the years while Israel was building homes for Jews in Judea, Samaria and all parts of Jerusalem.]

And, as for the Palestinian Arabs’ peace-process position, that AP article added: “The Palestinians say they will not restart talks unless Israel halts settlement construction and accepts the pre-1967 lines as the basis for a future border.”

So the AP and Inq purveyed a prejudicially false picture this week in purveying Israel – long howling for immediate peace talks’ resumption with no-preconditions – as just as much needing “cajoling” to come to such talks as the one-sided-concession-demanding just-to-come-to-the-talks Palestinian Arabs.

Next Week?

Yet, all this is skirmishing. If the two sides do show up in Washington next week for talks on “the-two-state-solution,” and there’s a blow-up, the Blame Game will appear in the press before they’re back on the plane. The Big Money, as on May 30th, is on Israel not agreeing to “a settlement freeze,” Israel not building homes for Jews in disputed areas, while Arabs keep right on building for Arabs.

That the media will blame any blowup on Palestinian Arabs, Abbas along with Hamas, adamantly rejecting “two-states” in its only meaningful sense of two states for two peoples, is a longshot. When this basic-to-peace matter of Arab recognition of Israel as the Jewish state has come up before, here’s how a pair of mainstream Western media stalwarts portrayed it. Los Angeles Times in the Inq, 10/24/10:

Some see Netanyahu’s actions [insistence on Arab recognition of Israel as the Jewish state] as a tactical move to put Palestinians on the defensive, paint them as rejectionists and divert attention from Israel’s controversial settlement construction in the West Bank, which has thrown peace talks into crisis.

Our beloved Inq’s headline left off the LA Times’ fig-leaf “some see”:

A New Stumbling Block to Mideast Peace Talks; Israel Presses Palestinians to Recognize “Jewish State”

“A New Stumbling Block”? A “Jewish state” has always been what the land of Israel has been all about all along. The United Nations’ partition resolution with its “Jewish” and “Arab” [btw, not “Palestinian”] states. Before that, the League of Nations’ Palestine Mandate with its ‘Jewish National Home” and “close settlement of Jews on the land” [all the land west of the Jordan]. And before that from the Jewish homeland’s earliest beginnings in 13th century BCE Israelite villages in the Judean and Samarian hills, through the Jews’ continuous biblical and post-biblical presence all through the centuries that, as historian Parkes put it, wrote the Zionists’ “real title deeds,” down to today. The peace process block is not that only Arabs should build homes in Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem that’s had a Jewish majority since 19th century times, for all that the media insistently references “Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.” The peace process block is Arabs’ insistence on the Six Day War’s and 242’s nullification, and at that as a pre-condition to talks. We’ll see whether the media portrays the impasse correctly this time.

Regards,
Jerry